Look at what you're saying.

I'm assuming that by ``fallen'' you mean ``committed a sin''. You say that if he hadn't fallen, then he would have been able to follow the law perfectly, where the law is defined by what sins are, so that following the law perfectly means never to commit a sin.

So your statement

If Adam had not fallen he would have been able to follow the law perfectly as well.

is easily translated to:

If Adam had not [committed a sin] he would have been able to [commit no sins]

I don't see that that has any meaning.

However, it is possible that my assumptions about what you mean in certain places are wrong.

The thing that gets most paleontologist's panties in a wad is when you mention that they have never found any form of itermediate fossil.

While I have heard it claimed, say by creationists, that this issue gets paleontologists' undies in a bunch, I have yet to see any independent verification that this issue does, in fact, get paleos' knickers in a twist.

FWIW, it is an issue raised often enough for a a.t.o FAQ last updated in 1997. A small excerpt is:

To demonstrate anything about how a species arose, whether it arose gradually or suddenly, you need exceptionally complete strata, with many dead animals buried under constant, rapid sedimentation. This is rare for terrestrial animals. Even the famous Clark's Fork (Wyoming) site, known for its fine Eocene mammal transitions, only has about one fossil per lineage about every 27,000 years. Luckily, this is enough to record most episodes of evolutionary change (provided that they occurred at Clark's Fork Basin and not somewhere else), though it misses the rapidest evolutionary bursts. In general, in order to document transitions between species, you specimens separated by only tens of thousands of years (e.g. every 20,000-80,000 years). If you have only one specimen for hundreds of thousands of years (e.g. every 500,000 years), you can usually determine the order of species, but not the transitions between species. If you have a specimen every million years, you can get the order of genera, but not which species were involved. And so on.

I'm assuming you've read all of that, so wonder what you think the flaws are. And is there a fossil record of a paleontologist with torqued BVDs??

(not trying to turn this thread into a.t.o, and I even hesitated to respond, except that I see that the thread has already gone off in other directions!)

I think it's important to point out that not every animal that ever died became fossilized. It's a fairly rare occurrance. Most just disintegrated.

Ah, let me rephrase then.

God is perfect and holy. Man was created to be perfect and holy as well, which means acting and doing as God does. If Adam (as the first man) had stuck with this program, he would never have had to experience death. God, however, did not see fit to create man to be like him and have to choice about it. To give man this free will a choice was put before him: “here is an apple you can eat that will cause you to experience death. It is not my [God’s] will that you should eat of it, but I will not stop you.” Adam chose to eat the apple against God’s wishes. This was not an arbitrary rule, however: Mankind was not meant to experience death or to disobey its creator.

Now we have a people who have chosen against God, and don’t realize that they are at odds with their creator. Thus God gives them the law, which is again (as the Rev stated) not arbitrary, but characteristic of who he is. These people can then see, by way of the law, how they “miss the mark” of who they are supposed to be. The law has not made these people unrighteous, it has demonstrated who they are by contrasting their ways and God’s ways.

This law points us to a Savior who, by faith, has given us the ability to be put right with God again. However, unless we realize we need a Savior, we will not trust in Him. Thus the law demonstrates that we need a Savior.

Okay, since 2AM and 12PM, this thread got 68 new replies.

I'm just going to post what my "contact" at National Geographic calls "One-stop shopping--all the links you'll ever need in support of evolution"

I think it's important to point out that not every animal that ever died became fossilized. It's a fairly rare occurrance. Most just disintegrated.

Absolutely. And that seems to be the issue that this FAQ treated in a more elaborate way. If everyplace was like Wyoming -- if I could start shoveling anywhere and find a T-Rex -- Wyoming wouldn't be so famous, would it?

Either I believe the God I have a personal relationship with to be capable of keeping His text pure or I don't.

I'll concede that God is capable of keeping his text pure. This does not mean that God actually wanted to keep the text pure. His reasons for making the bible (or allowing it to become) self-contradictory or ambiguous are, presumably, ineffable.

The thing that gets most paleontologist's panties in a wad is when you mention that they have never found any form of itermediate fossil. There have been many T-Rex skeletons found, for example, but no skeletons that are "almost" T-Rex.

You obviously haven't met a real paleontologist or seen a paleontological collection (research collection, not museum one). There are hardly any fossils exept 'intermediate' ones. Almost everything paleontologists find (except perhaps most common and stable species like some mollusks) is 'almost this' or 'somewhat like that' or 'between A and B'.

If the same principals that are used in carbon dating or other techniques used to prove evolution were used in the field of medicine, we'd be lucky if we survived taking asprin.

I used to work in an institution where they did C14 and tritium dating. Not terribly accurate, of course, but your get you order of magnitude (much better that that, but that's beside the point). Of course, the deeper in the past we get, more assumptions get into the picture and measurements become less accurate, but not that innaccurate..

Evolution was a desperate attemp to remove God from the picture

On the contrary. I would like warm and fuzzy feeling of having somebody watch over me (I don't worry about having to stick to It's ethics - my private version of it is close enough to that published by Christians), but, sadly, I don't see any evidence of such Someone's existence. Many early (and some modern) scientists found themselves torn between what they see and what more ortodox interpretation of their religion teaches.

OTOH, while I concede that out universe might conceivably be result of purposefull initial design, it is irrelevant to this discussion.

Again, I don't believe it, just because of contradictions like that. The God of Old Testament was a jealous and spiteful God, and not one that I would want to say I believe in. I'm just trying to show that if you say you are a Christian, you can't pick and choose the Bible, cause if you do there's no point to being a Christian at all.

I agree with your description of Old Testament God. Actually, to me Christianity seems a very unlikely (but, apparently, successful) attempt to join two disparate religions (or, should I dare to say, 'repair' one): one based on fear, another on love. Now, what should a 'true Christian' do?

I wish people would say, "You know what, I'm not a Christian. I just believe that I should live my life the best that I can, and help someone out if I get the chance." Why do you have to be associated with a religion to do that?

Again, I agree. Kantian categorical imperative seems good enough foundation for everyday ethics, and altruism has well understood evolutionary advantages.

For the record, this message board is one of my favorite places to discuss anything on the web

Mine too, of course.

God, however, did not see fit to create man to be like him and have to choice about it.

That is one of biggest problems I have with Christian theology (and Judaic and Islamic, of course): why would a perfect beign create an imperfect creature and then punish it for not being perfect? To put is harsly, in order to have something to play with!? I think that Christian concept of God is blasphemous!

Thank you for this post, Jeff. I rarely have opportunity to hear coherent argument from a believer (despite my younger brother being one), and this one certainly is.

That is one of biggest problems I have with Christian theology (and Judaic and Islamic, of course): why would a perfect beign create an imperfect creature and then punish it for not being perfect?

As I said before, man was created to be perfect, only given the opportunity to be imperfect. This may sound like a thin line, but it’s important to understand the difference. Sin entered the world through us, not by God. He gave us the freewill to disobey him, apparently deciding that it is better to give us the choice of service rather than forcing us into obedience. Would it have been more just to make us into robots that obeyed His law without any will of our own? Christianity says the answer to this is “no.”

Yet, at the same time, it says that that free will is wrong. Odd.

I'm sorry, I don't quite get what you're saying. By "it" do you mean my statement or the bible?

I don't know where to put this reply, so I will stick it to the original post:

I urge evolution-sceptics to consider what else is wrong or baseless if species actually don't evolve: genetics, biomedicine, virology, practically all life sciences are firmly rooted in notion of evolution. Take that out, and what is left: capricious God playing elaborate and cruel practical joke on His creation!?

All kinds of pseudosciences (including, but by far not limited to creationism) take easy way: they have simple answer for everything, ignoring the vast body of knowledge gathered at the price of oceans of sweat and often blood (and that knowledge only scratching the surface of reality). At least today biologists, paleontologists and honest teachers are not burning at stake (yet). Giordano Bruno did. And yet, 'it does move', as his more pragmatical colleague Galileo would say, no?

So, my dear creationists, believe as you wish, but then be honest and don't touch that flu vaccine - it is surely work of devil.

Edit: Sorry for somewhat abrasive tone; I did not intent to insult any believer who actually thinks about this (and, as this thread shows, such creatures do exist ).

Thank you for the kind words. I rarely get to have these conversations (apart from around people who agree with me without even thinking) so I really appreciate the ability to have these discussions.

The Bible.

Free will inherenly includes the facility to do the wrong thing. Always avoiding the wrong thing would not be free will. Since free will is the only thing that provides the facility to sin, then free will itself must be wrong.

I suppose you could argue that free will means the ability to choose indiscriminately amongst multiple non-sin options, but that argument doesn't seem to be supported by what you're quoting.

In addition, Calvinists would claim that you're out-and-out wrong, and I don't think anyone could make a reasonable argument that they're not Christian.

As I said before, man was created to be perfect, only given the opportunity to be imperfect. This may sound like a thin line, but it’s important to understand the difference. Sin entered the world through us, not by God.

Hm, I think I understand what you are saying, but I am not buying it. After all, I am an IT consultant, I know who is responsible for program's behaviour And I understand it is crucial for Christian teology.

He gave us the freewill to disobey him, apparently deciding that it is better to give us the choice of service rather than forcing us into obedience. Would it have been more just to make us into robots that obeyed His law without any will of our own?

No, it would be more just not to punish us for our (planned) imperfection.

I guess it has to do with understanding of free will (and is it logically possible for a omniscient being to produce something unpredictable). Also, with question of why would a perfect beign have such a lowly, human concept as punishment?

Always avoiding the wrong thing would not be free will.

I don't follow. It's still a choice to do the right thing, so therefore freewill.

In addition, Calvinists would claim that you're out-and-out wrong, and I don't think anyone could make a reasonable argument that they're not Christian.

This is about to get seriously deep into theology if we continue, and I'm not sure how profitable our conversation would be concerning Calvinism and election; those ideas are generally debated among believers.

However, I will state a few things. First of all, believing my previous statements about the fall of man, freewill etc. is not necessary to be a Christian. In fact I’ll admit some of it at least is probably my own thinking rather than emphatic Christian theology. Secondly, not all Calvinists disbelieve freewill. They will state that man can choose God, but given his alliance with sin would never do so. It should be noted, however, that this is the situation after the person has fallen (or chosen sin over God). So in this view, there is the freewill to fall, but not to return. Some Calvinists do say, however, that Adam didn’t have freewill to fall in the first place. I respectfully disagree, though I certainly believe that they are Christians.

I'll admit that I'm skating on thin ice here, but my point is that you can't prove that free will exists until you do something that's opposite to what God wants; namely, a sin must be committed. So since the existence of free will inherently means that sin exists, free will must be wrong.

And I'll admit that Calvinists kinda-sorta believe in free will to an extent, but not really. The rules are certainly remarkably complicated and seem to exist to make it more palatable to the population.

Similarly, the Inuit have something like 40 different words for snow.

I hate to rain on your parade here (actually, I love it, but that's just my mean streak showing through ) but this would cast doubt on that statement.

tanstaafl.

some of the entries on the serious lists of Eskimo snow words are as dubious as "wa-ter" meaning melted snow

Except that it isn't impossible to follow them all. Jesus was fully man and he did it. If Adam had not fallen he would have been able to follow the law perfectly as well. All the law does is demonstrate what is already true: that we reject God and instead focus on ourselves.

This part I always thought was odd. Now was Jesus all Man, or all God? According to the text he's supposed to be both. So of course he could live a life without sin, he's God. He had some help.

On the contrary. I would like warm and fuzzy feeling of having somebody watch over me (I don't worry about having to stick to It's ethics - my private version of it is close enough to that published by Christians), but, sadly, I don't see any evidence of such Someone's existence. Many early (and some modern) scientists found themselves torn between what they see and what more ortodox interpretation of their religion teaches.

What I mean is that science was under the control of religion, and religion main interest was not always the truth. Here's a question; has anybody heard of Darwin's Confession, where Darwin, nearing the end of his days, recanted everything he said about evolution? I've always hear that it's real or fake, depending who you talk to, but I've never seen any facts about. If anything to me, I've always had the belief that there is too much design in the world to of come together by chance, but whoever did it has long since left us by now.

Here's a question; has anybody heard of Darwin's Confession, where Darwin, nearing the end of his days, recanted everything he said about evolution? I've always hear that it's real or fake, depending who you talk to, but I've never seen any facts about.

This may be another of those "who you talk to" things, but this source says it's fake:

Q: Didn't Darwin renounce evolution on his deathbed?

A: The Darwin deathbed story is false. And in any case, it is irrelevant. A scientific theory stands or falls according to how well it is supported by the facts, not according to who believes it. See the Lady Hope Story FAQ.

I think, more importantly than whether the story is fake, is the point they make. Even if he did refute it, it doesn't matter. The theory either stands or falls depending on the evidence. Even if darwin were stark raving mad when he came up with the theory, it's still supported by the evidence. A theory stands on its own, no matter who posited it or whether or not that person still favors it.

This is the corollary to the point Penn and Teller were making with the "sex of the rabbit" demonstration. It went like this:

"Here's a rabbit. We don't know the sex of the rabbit. Teller and I are going to vote on what we think the sex of the rabbit is." (They each scribble on small cards. Penn holds up his card, it has the universal symbol for Female drawn on it.) "I think the rabbit is female. Teller thinks..." (he holds up teller's card, which contains a well-known unpronounceable symbol on it) "... Teller thinks the rabbit is Prince."

Their point was... No matter what they voted, or thought, or believed, the rabbit was either male or female, and the only way to really find out was to CHECK. That's the nature of science. You check, you test, you find the facts and the falsehoods through experiment. It doesn't matter what you believe. There's no voting (despite the fact that they documented a school board voting on essentially that very thing). The rabbit is either male or female, evolution either happens or it doesn't. Science is not the theory, science is not a belief, science is the method you use to check and test your theories or beliefs against the facts.

Drat. Whoever cooked that up, then, did a good snow job on me.

(But the part about the Chinese xia still stands.)

On the contrary. I would like warm and fuzzy feeling of having somebody watch over me (I don't worry about having to stick to It's ethics - my private version of it is close enough to that published by Christians), but, sadly, I don't see any evidence of such Someone's existence. Many early (and some modern) scientists found themselves torn between what they see and what more ortodox interpretation of their religion teaches.

What I mean is that science was under the control of religion, and religion main interest was not always the truth.

Religion per se came to being as attempt to make sense of the world, so it originally was interested in what we would now call scientific truth. For organized religion ('religious establishment', i.e. churches of all kinds) your statement holds, of course, because they are primarily political organizations.

Here's a question; has anybody heard of Darwin's Confession, where Darwin, nearing the end of his days, recanted everything he said about evolution? I've always hear that it's real or fake, depending who you talk to, but I've never seen any facts about. If anything to me, I've always had the belief that there is too much design in the world to of come together by chance, but whoever did it has long since left us by now.

I have never heard of "Darwin's Confession", but, one way or another, it is irrelevant. Evolutionary biology is not anchored in belief in Darwin's work. He was merely a well known pioneer (not even the first one). His work also has only historical signifficance (but huge one), as it was far too simplistic. He was a kind of biology's Kepler, not Einstein or Planck.

The whole point of "scientific method" is constant questioning of current assumptions and reeexamination of body of knowledge (which creationists seem to have difficulty understanding, but, as I said elsewhere, they prefer simple and definite answers). We currently don't know how the 'first spark of life' came into existence. Several ideas are in circulation (form classical 'primordial soup' to more current attempts to examine catalytical properties of some clays). However, virtual concensus among scientists is that Occam's razor leaves no room for direct Divine intervention.

Fine tuning of physical constants to make universe conductive to life is another matter. Obviously, if they were different we would not be here to observer them, but that statement is more avoiding the question than answering it. Two solutions seem to make sense: either there exist infinite number of universes with different physical constants (the tiny portion of them inhabitated), or the universe was designed so that life can (or, if you will, must) appear. This is old discussion; novices can google for 'anthropic principle'.

(Edit: I should finally learn to read the whole thread before responding; half of this post repeats Tony's response

This part I always thought was odd. Now was Jesus all Man, or all God? According to the text he's supposed to be both. So of course he could live a life without sin, he's God. He had some help.

True. The bible teaches that Jesus was tested as we are tested, but I understand the doubt (though I don't hold it) that His "testing" was not as difficult for Him as it is for us.

I should finally learn to read the whole thread before responding; half of this post repeats Tony's response

Actually, I kind of liked seeing the same point driven home again.

We currently don't know how the 'first spark of life' came into existence.

Right. We've got ideas, and some experiments that show it could have happened a certain way, but no way to find out if it really did happen that way. Ditto for the existence of the universe itself. They talk about the Big Bang, but that one is still very much in the "theory" department because evidence for it is sketchy (but mounting).

One of the things that bugs me is when some creationists try to talk about biological evolution and the Big Bang theory in the same breath. They're two different and completely unrelated theories.

Evolution doesn't try to answer the question "where did the universe come from?" It only answers the biological question of how life on this planet became so intricate and complex. Heck, even the Big Bang theory doesn't answer the "where did the universe come from" question, it only theorizes about the first moment of the universe's existence.

Obviously, if they were different we would not be here to observe them

Ah, exactly. Now there's something that's really fun to think about. I remember the first time this "hit" me. I was young, pre-teen, and it was an eye-opening idea for someone my age.

The idea: Sure, the chances are billions to one against any given planet supporting life (the creationists like to use this as an argument for I.D. sometimes). Fine, but here we are, sitting on that one-in-a-billion planet. Does that mean we were incredibly lucky? NO, it means we were inevitable, and the fact that we're sitting here contemplating our own existence simply means that our brains evolved enough intelligence to perform that activity. Put another way (perhaps existentialism, but anyway): If we weren't able to sit here contemplating our own existence, then we wouldn't be contemplating our own existence.

I forget who said it first, but here's the corollary: Sure, you could say that the odds of winning the lottery are millions to one. But the guy holding that winning ticket would be a fool to throw it away because "it must be wrong, the odds are millions to one against it being right".

Creationists like to argue that the first spark of life on this planet, the first time molecules assembled into self-replicating strands, had astronomical odds against it. Scientists counter with: "Yeah, but we had oceans of molecules working on the problem for eons". I counter with: "You're both forgetting that we had an entire universe full of planets, many of them with oceans of molecules working on the problem." (and I use the term 'working' metaphorically, of course.)

See, any argument about how "unlikely our biology could have come about by chance" is forgetting to look at it in the proper scale. They think it has to apply just to our planet, or our solar system, or our time period. It doesn't.

We're sitting on a winning lottery ticket, and we've got the evidence to show it. Those who say the game was rigged are missing out on the true wonder and appreciation for the situation.